Wednesday

Feb 8, 2017 at 8:00 PMFeb 8, 2017 at 8:29 PM

Gov. BRUCE RAUNER has close connections to some members of the administration of President DONALD TRUMP.

Asked at a State Journal-Register editorial board meeting about state government’s relations with the White House, the governor said, as he had before, that he doesn’t really know the president, but had called to congratulate him after the election and looks forward to a “cordial working relationship.” Then he spoke of his better connections.

“MIKE PENCE and I have worked together for years,” Rauner said of the vice president and former Indiana governor. “We know each other well. He’s helped me. I’ve helped him. We don’t agree on everything, but ... no two people agree on everything.”

He said NICK AYERS, former head of the Washington, D.C.-based Republican Governors Association, ran Pence’s campaign, ran Rauner’s campaign, is a “good friend of mine,” and a “very talented guy. He’s very involved in the administration and transition, so we have a great connection there.”

NIKKI HALEY, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor, is also a “close friend,” Rauner said.

“She is awesome,” he said of Haley. “She’s helped me. I’ve helped her. I’m excited that she’s going to the U.N. I think she’ll do a great job. Our working relationship with the U.N. needs to change. And again, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that. I’ve got to focus here. But ... she’s going to be a leading voice within the administration on security issues, which is great.”

“He helped run my campaign,” Rauner said. “I recruited him to do strategy and polling. Brilliant man. Also ran Nikki Haley’s campaign. Orthodox Jew from Maryland who’s a very big believer that the U.N. structure needs to change. And so he and Nikki are going together to work on the U.N. issues, which I think is awesome.”

Rauner also said he has known Education Secretary BETSY DeVOS for years, and like her, he is a “big education choice person.”

“She’s very passionate and very intelligent and very thoughtful,” he said, and depending on her confirmation — which she received from the Senate after Rauner’s visit to the SJ-R — he was looking forward to working with her in her new capacity.

Radio caller

TOM SHAFER, a regular caller to radio talk shows in Springfield and a candidate for Springfield School Board, caused a bit of a stir last week as he spoke about Jerome’s police department on local radio.

“The Jerome Police Department has been dissolved,” Shafer said on WFMB-AM, on Jan. 30.

Jerome Village President MIKE LOPEZ said later that the declaration on the radio “caused a lot of havoc in Jerome” and was “not responsible.” He said he took several calls on the issue.

Lopez said that Police Chief CRAIG KENNEDY — for strictly budgetary reasons — was let go, but four officers remain on the department, including 20-year veteran MARK ESTILL, who was promoted to acting chief.

Shafer initially told me he knew the chief had been dismissed, but if he went further, “then I misspoke.”

In the call, Shafer accused the department of having run a “speed trap” over the years.

“And now, with the Jerome Police Department gone, dissolved, and the chief gone, I want to at least have a moment of silence for the wonderful, memorable, Jerome Police Department speed trap,” he said.

“OK, that’s long enough,” he said, with no pause.

When pressed about his repeated statements on air about the end of the department, Shafer told me: “On radio, it’s not like the written word. You don’t have a chance to revise. You’ve only got a very short period of time.... and I don’t know how many people take my word as the gospel truth on a radio call-in show which is pretty freewheeling.”

He said he called back the station another day and corrected himself on the air.

In his initial call to WFMB, Shafer said Jerome police “pulled me over on my bicycle one time.” He told me he was not ticketed in that case. And Sangamon County court records show he got a ticket from Jerome in 2010 for a seat belt violation. He pleaded guilty and paid $55.

Shafer, who in the past has run for the school board, the county board, the Lincoln Land Community College board and Sangamon County coroner, is running for Subdistrict 6 of the Springfield School Board against incumbent JUDY JOHNSON in the April 4 election.

The president of the Springfield School Board is ADAM LOPEZ of Subdistrict 2 — son of the Jerome village president. But neither Lopez had anything to do with my questioning Shafer about what I heard him say on the radio.

Journalism Hall of Fame

An induction ceremony will be held March 6 to honor three new members of the BILL MILLER Public Affairs Reporting Hall of Fame.

The PAR master’s degree program at the University of Illinois Springfield — led for 19 years by the late Bill Miller — has alums who after working in their Statehouse pressroom internships have gone on to great success across the country and beyond.

One of the three inductees is MIKE KIENZLER, 68, of rural Athens, who was in the first PAR class in 1973. He retired in 2013 after nearly 40 years with The State Journal-Register, most of it spent as metro editor and deputy metro editor — with not a small part of that time spent answering my questions, because his is a great mind. His involvement in local history includes being founding, and current, editor of SangamonLink.org, the online encyclopedia of the Sangamon County Historical Society.

Also being inducted is MICHAEL HAWTHORNE, 50, of Chicago, a 1989 PAR intern and investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune, focusing on public health and environmental issues. Hawthorne participated in a story about harmful, ineffective flame retardants, promoted by tobacco and chemical industries, used in household furniture.

The third inductee is SCOTT CANON, 56, of Kansas City, Missouri, a 1982 PAR intern who has worked on the Kansas City Star since 1989, covering stories including the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, the school shooting in Columbine, Colorado, the start of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in 2001, and tsunami recovery in Sri Lanka.

The induction ceremony, sponsored by the UIS Center for State Policy and Leadership, includes a 5:30 p.m. reception and 6:30 p.m. program March 6 at the Inn at 835, 835 N. Second St., Springfield. Attendees are encouraged to register in advance, online at go.uis.edu/parhof or by calling 206-7163. Cost is $55 per person, and people can also pay at the door.

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